Paramount recently announced plans for a new “A Nightmare on Elm Street” movie.
Five pieces of advice for Paramount ahead of their proposed A Nightmare on Elm Street reboot …
The online horror community was in a tizzy when Paramount recently publicized plans to go full steam ahead with another reboot/remake/reimagining/restart of the A Nightmare on Elm Street series. And as soon as it was announced, you could feel the shivers of excitement — and skepticism — reverberating all over the internet.
As I write this the details on the Elm Street project are mum. Some sources say the film would follow Wes Craven’s original script to the T, while others suspect the upcoming movie would be a wild departure from the established Freddy Krueger lore. There are opportunities a plenty with the Elm Street franchise, obviously — but as the 2010 remake reminds us, there are just as many ways to fail spectacularly as there are ways to knock it out of the ball park.
I don’t know who the writer or director or producer for the alleged upcoming Elm Street movie may be. But before cameras start rolling, I’d like to give them a little bit of unsolicited advice to ensure the next Elm Street movie — whenever it’s released, in whatever form it takes — isn’t a big, stinking disappointment.
Want to make sure the upcoming entry in the A Nightmare on Elm Street series won’t suck? Well, here are five crucial elements that could make or break the movie entirely …
GET ROBERT ENGLUND INVOLVED, SOMEHOW, SOMEWAY
By now it’s hardly a controversial opinion: Robert Englund is Freddy Krueger. Alas, as old as he is, you really can’t expect Rob to suit up in the Christmas sweater and burn prosthetics again for the role. Somebody else will inevitably have to don the iconic razor glove and fedora for the upcoming film, but that doesn’t mean Robert Englund wouldn’t have an important role to play in the movie. And for a given who embodies a character the way Englund does, a quick wink-at-the-audience cameo won’t cut it. Robert should either return as the voice actor behind Freddy K or portray a prominent character closely connected to the Elm Street mythos — perhaps, the father of the bastard son of a thousand maniacs? Regardless, as long as Robert Englund is alive and capable of doing something as an actor, he HAS to be in the next Elm Street flick, and he has to be doing something really important in it, too.
MAKE SURE IT HAS *SOME* HUMOR IN IT
There are a LOT of reasons why the 2010 Elm Street remake failed. And one of the biggest was its tone, which tried WAY too hard to be super dark and serious … which is the kind of thing you really can’t do when you’re literally making a movie about a knife-handed burn victim that kills 11th graders in their sleep. Even the very first Elm Street movie had its fair share of camp and goofiness, which actually complemented the hardcore horror elements of the movie quite well. Of course, the upcoming film certainly shouldn’t go all in on the comedy overtones and make it a quasi-parody of the Freddy K mythology, but by that same token it’s impossible to take the core concept of the series 100 percent seriously. Nobody wants to see Freddy Krueger making “6-7” jokes or turning people into Labubu dolls or anything like that, but you’ve got to let the Springwood Slasher drop a few puns here and there, don’t you?
GIVE IT TO A DIRECTOR WITH AN ACTUAL VISION
Everybody is going to want to direct the next Elm Street movie — and sometimes, the most obvious choices you can make for a directing job could turn out to be the worst. We all know that Paramount is going to want to hand the directing gig off to whoever has the hottest hand heading into production, and there’s no shortage of potential candidates on the slate. Several prominent directors have already publicly announced their desire to resurrect the Elm Street I.P., and considering the ongoing YouTuber-to-director craze, it’s kinda obvious what sort of names could be courted for the movie. We all want a filmmaker with reverence for the source material to call the shots, but at the same time, we also need somebody who isn’t afraid to try something new (or even heretical) with the Elm Street mythos. It’s a risk, but Paramount has to take a gamble and roll the dice on an unorthodox choice for director — someone who isn’t content giving us the same old same old.
DON’T MAKE IT A PERIOD PIECE
As soon as word came out that the upcoming film would be based directly on Wes Craven’s original script, the internet throngs began speculating that said film would be set in the early ‘80s. And I can see how Paramount might be keen on that, considering how popular period pieces like Stranger Things have been. It’s tempting to set the next Elm Street film in the eighties, if not a blindingly obvious approach. But that could be a major misstep, as it would turn the film into a replacement for the original instead of a reimagining. The reality is that the current world is rife with aspects and elements that are perfect fodder for an Elm Street movie, considering Freddy has always been a metaphor for teenage fears of societal pressure. Freddy Krueger is a truly timeless boogeyman if there ever was one, and letting him loose in the TikTok, Donald Trump and Ozempic age is pure gold in the hands of the right screenwriter.
BORROW FROM THE SEQUELS AS MUCH AS YOU CAN
We’ve got seven official, canonical Elm Street movies in the archives to work off of (plus one crossover movie, plus another remake that we definitely don’t want to talk about.) With so much lore and history, it would be a mistake to ignore the Elm Street sequels in developing whatever this new Elm Street flick is going to be. If you’re going to relaunch the Elm Street series, there’s no point in only going back to the first film in the series (a’la 2018’s sequel-eliminating Halloween redo.) The not-so-subtle-but-at-the-time-totally-subversive closeted homosexuality subplot from the second movie? Use it. The whole troubled-teens-forge-a-united-front motif from part three? Incorporate it. The super surreal expressionistic horror of part four? Throw it in there, too. We already know what works and what doesn’t work with the Freddy Krueger formula — so why not reuse the recipes we know for a fact will satisfy audiences?
Who knows what the next Elm Street movie will resemble, when it comes out or if it will even happen it all (remember that one Friday the 13th reboot we were supposed to get in the late 2010s?) But there’s certainly plenty of potential with the resurrection of the franchise; here’s hoping Paramount heeds our advice and doesn’t disappoint all of us Freddy-maniacs who have been waiting impatiently for Mr. Krueger’s return to theaters for decades now …